As you can see, I’ve been exchanging note with Adam Roberts on Twitter. For example:
"adds nothing" – Yes!— Bill Benzon (@bbenzon) November 3, 2019
Shakespeare's Falstaff does (at least) 2 things: 1) He provides a critique of war, and 2) He opens the dramatic space so Henry V can be triumphal. To be sure, those are somewhat at odds, but then that's Falstaff.
We did indeed see the head come right off.— Adam Roberts (@arrroberts) November 3, 2019
And so forth.
Adam is more critical than I was, and I wasn’t exactly effusive with praise. Puzzled is more like it. In first place, says, Adam, they tossed the language, some of the very best in English literature. I’m OK with that. It means they’d decided they weren’t going to do Shakespeare, just do a story he’s very well known for, and present it to an audience more familiar with Game of Thrones (which I’ve never seen) than the Bard. And then, secondly, they decided to revise Falstaff, substantially. That’s a more serious criticism, and I spent most of my previous post talking about that.
If I’d gone on I’d have talked about how, for all the grim visual razzle dazzle and special FX, the story wasn’t epic in scope. It was strained and constipated. Those royals and aristos at the top, just slogging it out in the mud like the rest of us. A bit of over-amplified sound and fury signifying zilch, nada, zip, 0. So what if one of his own courtiers tricked Henry into fighting a battle he didn’t want to fight. The country’s united, amirite? Ours is not an epic age. Ours is, well, um, err....
Right.
And Shakespeare is a bit of a problem. As I’ve pointed out in several recent posts – What does evolution have to teach us about Shakespeare’s reputation? [founder effect], Just how good is Shakespeare anyhow?, and, I was right Shakespeare isn’t real (Lit Lab 17) – Shakespeare has long since ceased being a real person, a real writer, and ascended into the stratosphere of myth and symbol. He’s a cultural icon, the Author of Us All.
Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s no longer Shakespeare’s world. That is, perhaps we would do well to stop clinging to the hope/belief that we’re his children. Perhaps it is time to step out into our own brave new world.
How do we do that? I can imagine that Michôd and his team were quite clear in thinking that most of their audience didn’t really know Shakespeare and so wouldn’t care about fidelity to his early modern texts. But Game of Thrones, and any number of grimy medieval sagas we’ve seen in the last decade or two, that’s what their audience knows. So, why not? play to them. Shakespeare played to HIS audience, did he not? Can we do better than the Bard?
And so they played to their audience. And, no, they didn’t do better than the Bard. Do better? Not possible. As I’ve pointed out, the Bard isn’t real. He’s a myth. You can’t compete with, can’t top myth.
So why even try? We do THIS story at all? Why not make one up, you know, an original story.
[Easier said than done.]
Michôd is stuck. He wants to please, perhaps educate, even elevate? a post-Shakespeare audience. But alas he DOES know Shakespeare, can’t get him out of his mind. And so he’s stuck between two worlds, no longer believing in the old, not knowing how to walk in the new.
Two-faced Janus, facing backward and forward. Stuck.
Hoist on his own...you know the word, don’t you?
Forget it.
I watched it but clearly I watched a different movie.
ReplyDeleteI managed to watch it from start to finish (which is extremely unusual).
The script was bizarre, at times verging on the comical I thought. That seemed to be budget related, expensive sets and the action was condensed down to a very restrictive degree.
Rite of passage movie, although the story seemed to go nowhere.
Interesting idea though, the perplexing almost daft moments could have worked. Viewed through the eyes of someone who does not understand the role they are being asked to play and is surrounded by people playing roles he does not understand.
Awkward coming of age comedy of errors. It could have worked, it did not.
I can't say I thought of Shakespeare watching it, historical fantasy, it was better than Red Dawn I thought.
Initially I didn't think it had anything to do with Shakespeare. It certainly wasn't an adaptation of the plays, even allowing for compressing, say, 9 to 12 hours of drama into 2+. But anyone in a position to make such a film will certainly have come across the Henriad and know something about it. That's just how our culture works. So it had to be there in the background even if only a relatively small portion of the audiences knows and cares about Shakespeare. So it's interesting to me to see what they changed.
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